Some of you have asked why my brother and I never learned from the masters we met in our youths. To speak for myself -- I blew up my right hand making explosives after New York's mayor Laguardia outlawed fireworks in NYC. A few years later I caught my other hand in a Shopsmith I bought from Jay Marshall when he went off to Chicago. My brother learned a good double lift, a top change and a fair shift and used these slender skills to advance his military career. Beyond the rank of major, it is all who you know and what parties you get invited to.

I aso have to credit my mother for intilling in me a dislike of magic. Even though I used those damaged hands well enough to be considered a master model maker, I never did any serious magic after the age of twelve.

Well...they say the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree, but it does tend to roll a bit. If Vernon were my father I'd likely not be doing magic either just because it was always there and competing with the name would be tough.Steve V

There were hundreds of magicians who had the skills of my father. There were not too many who were willing to spend ninety years of their limited time on earth totaly devoted to the cause. Even Jay and Martin ventured outside the field. The prof never did, despite the fact that he did have other skills. He learned early on that carrying pails of mercury was not something he was ever born to do.

I preferred Blackstone Sr to Jr, but I thought that Fu Manchu was every bit as good as Okito. These were stage show guys. How many sons of close up people were better or even as good as their parent? Jackie Flosso was taller, better educated, and handsomer than his dad. He never had the magic that Al displayed. The little Coney Island fakir, desite his diminutive size, his wrinkled clothes, his NY accent, Al was brilliant and his tasteless performance of the miser's dream("take your hands out of your pockets kid" was a masterpiece.